Track Days 3+4 -- Ridge and PIR

Track Day 3 -- The Ridge W/ Track Night in America

So as part of our plan to get everybody at least some track familiarity, I found Orion to be free for a Track Night in America event at The Ridge. For this event though, both myself and Orion would be driving the car back to back, allowing us to really test the accords durability as an "endurance" car!

Lap times wise, the car handled admirably!

I was able to run a 2:06.28. I was surprised to see just how high the top speed was on the front straight, but a bit bummed that the car was so a lot slower in other sections. Given the car weighs more than my C5 Corvette, with less tire and less power... I suppose I can't ask for that much more out of it. Plus it's an automatic Honda Accord... we're already asking too much of it!

Orion put down a 2:12, which is similar to the time Dave was able to put down. Dave had more sessions of time in the car, but had higher temperatures and a passenger, so not entirely fair to compare. It does seem 2:12 is a reasonable goal for a novice in this car however. It does pain me a bit that this car is pretty much 10-20 seconds slower than my Corvette, but there are some pretty big differences between these two cars!

A few fun takeaways from the event were that the car is way peppier and carries a higher rpm in all gears if you are in D3 versus drive. So we'd use D3 everywhere but the front straight. All of the temperatures held strong on the car, but we did have some slight issues we believe with the power steering. The ridge is known for being hard on power steering, so the current though is we do a much larger power steering reservoir and put some anti slosh interior baffling in it to help avoid aeration.

Track Day 4 -- PIR with CSCC

For the 4th track day, we brought the Accordion out to PIR to run with Cascade Sports Car Club. I was personally busy with tracking my C5 Corvette and instructing, however our team member Janik came to the event to shred the Accordion! 

Janik had some prior Autocross, but for whatever reason had not yet hit the track. The Accord presented the perfect opportunity for him to get out though, and sure enough it impressed him just the same as it did everyone else. The car handled amazing well, and while not terribly powerful it wasn't entirely a slouch either.

Janik pulled off a 1:43.405 as his best lap, which is pretty reasonable considering Dave did about the same on his first day. Granted, dave had 25 degree higher temperatures and only managed to get a few sessions in due to initial shakedown issues, but a solid first showing for Janik out at the track!

Takeaways from the Track Events

So a few things occured we'll need to address.

1. General
   1. Sometimes, for some unknown reason, the car just won't start. No clue why.
   2. There is an unknown leak somewhere on the car. It's aerosolized though, and was sprayed all over my truck for some reason. We'll need to take the passenger side apart and look around to try and find the leak.
2. Power Steering
   1. We had power steering issues at The Ridge, which for whatever reason is known to tax power steering. For brief moments, the power steering would get stiff and we'd lose steering feel. A larger reservoir with baffling would perhaps would help, and/or adding additional cooling. Given we don't have temperatures, the cause is either temperature related, or from fluid sloshing away from the pickup in the reservoir. Might as well attack it two-fold!
3. Transmission
   1. We saw excessive trans temps of around 260 degrees. We'd like to keep those lower, so an additional cooler is surely in order.
   2. Janik noted shift quality deteriorated as time went on at PIR. Maybe we should try and change some of the trans fluid... it is ancient. Still, draining an old and beat automatic trans nearly always results in it's early demise so... maybe not?